The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill aimed at preventing culprits from evading the legal process and fleeing the country was last week passed by the Lok Sabha, as the opposition questioned the goverment's sincerity in taking any action against them. The House later passed the legislation by a voice vote as Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said the government had brought an ordinance before introducing the bill in Parliament which reflected its "aggressiveness" in acting against black money and such offenders. To opposition demand to bring the bill with retrospective effect to book offenders who have already fled, Goyal said it was not possible as the legislation was and the government "knows how to bring the accused to book". During the almost two-hour long debate on the bill, the opposition questioned the government's sincerity in acting against economic offenders saying many of them have fled the country during its rule, even as the BJP maintained that the banks were being helped to recover their money. The Bill will now have to be passed by the Rajya Sabha. On this edition of ‘The Big Picture’ we discuss the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill of 2018.
Guests:
Piyush Singh, Advocate, Supreme Court
A.K. Bhattacharya, Editorial Director, Business Standard
Chakshu Roy, Head, Legislative and Civic Engagement Initiatives, PRS
Nitin Desai, Former Chief Economic Adviser, GoI
24 июл 2024
